The 9513 - Country Music Blog

• Jamey Johnson is joining Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews for the Farm Aid music festival in New England on Sept. 20. Maybe this will end up being the first step towards a Jamey Johnson and Willie Nelson studio collaboration. Or maybe I’ll just keep on dreaming my dreams.
• Keeping with the Jamey Johnson theme, Chris Neal has a short Q&A with the new age outlaw in Nashville Scene:
  

  Did you have any hesitation about sharing all that darkness with the people who are going to hear the album?
  You always do. Believe it or not, I’m a pretty private guy. I don’t really welcome that many people into my direct situation. But when you go to write a song, you owe it to your listener to give them complete honesty, to tell them the full story in a way they can hear it, understand it and apply it to their life. If you can’t do that, it’s like peeing in your pants: You might get a warm feeling, but nobody else really cares to know. [Laughs.] I’m putting one out there to the guy or girl sitting at the end of the bar who doesn’t understand the feeling they’ve got going on because somebody left ‘em. I want to let those people know it’s going to be all right. Hell, I’m laughing about it already.

• Ralph Emery will serve as a special guest emcee for the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony on Aug. 16 in Carthage, TX. The inductees are Buck Owens, Mickey Newbury and The Whites.
• Peter Cooper lists a few of the artifacts to you can look forward to if you plan on visiting the humble, yet informative Kitty Wells exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
• Edd Hurt has his own piece on the Kitty Wells exhibit, but focuses more on telling her story chronologically.
• If you missed the May release of The Wager, a movie starring Randy Travis in the leading role, fret not, Real Country Radio has a review and links to a press release and the movie trailer so you can get a feel for Travis’ acting chops.
• Lost Highway Records will release the new Lucinda Williams album, Little Honey, on Oct. 14.
• Lyle Lovett took the audience on a two-and-a-half hour tour through his 20-year catalog on Tuesday night at Austin’s Long Center. John T. Davs says this year’s edition of the Large Band was typically top-heavy with talented veterans, including mandolin maestro Sam Bush, George Strait’s fiddler Gene Elders and A-list session drummer Russ Kunkel.
• Watch the new video for John Michael Montgomery’s “If You Ever Went Away.”
• The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum may be forced to pony up $1.5 million if it wants to keep a mandolin owned by Bill Monroe, Mother Maybelle’s guitar and two other guitars owned by Johnny Cash. The instruments were donated to the museum by the late Robert W. McLean, who used investors’ money from a Ponzi scheme he was operating to purchase the instruments. When he took his life last September, he owed the investors more than $63 million. (via The Bluegrass Blog)
• Check out the new song, “Too Hard To Say,” from Danielle Peck on her MySpace.
• Although Patsy Cline is one of the most celebrated country singers in history, Craig Shelburne says you’d be hard pressed to find much in her hometown of Winchester, Va. that honors her. But a not-for-profit organization called Celebrating Patsy Cline is trying to change that.
• Listen to Suzy Bogguss on Mountain Stage via NPR.
• Ray Waddell describes the new Waylon Jennings/Shooter Jennings collaboration album titled Waylon Forever:
  

  The album features relatively faithful, if edgier, renditions of Jennings standards like Neil Young’s “Are You Ready for the Country,” Rodney Crowell’s “Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This,” and Jennings’ own “Waymore’s Blues”; a stirring ballad reworking of “Outlaw Sh*t” (previously released as “Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand”), a cover of Cream’s “White Room,” as well as the never-released, Waylon-penned “I Found the Body.”

• Nashville Star winner Melissa Lawson has a date with the Grand Ole Opry on Aug. 16.
• If you’ve started planning next year’s vacation and need help deciding on a destination, check out the Grand Ole Opry Classic Country Cruise. Opry stars Mel Tillis, John Conlee and Jeannie Seely along with T.G. Sheppard and Mandy Barnett will provide entertainment, answer questions and share stories.
• Here’s the video for Kenny Chesney’s “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven,” featuring Bob Marley’s band, The Wailers.
• People.com has the first public photo from Jewel’s wedding. Ty Murray proposed to the singer on her birthday back in May and kept it a secret from everyone, including family, until after they eloped. Murray says the couple has already begun work on starting a family.
• Linda from Still Is Still Moving posted the story behind Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard’s recording of the Townes Van Zandt penned “Pancho and Lefty.” According to Joe Nick Patoski’s biography, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, Willie stirred Merle from sleep at four in the morning.
  

  Merle shuffled into the studio, bleary-eyed and more than a little spaced-out. Willie handed him the lyrics he’d scribbled on a brown paper bag. Merle ran through the vocals with Willie as they both got a feel for the song about a Mexican bandit and his inscrutable friend, both of them living outside the law. The tape rolled. Merle nailed his vocal in one take and went back to his bus to sleep. The next morning, he found Willie on the golf course and asked if he could do another vocal of the song they’d recorded a few hours earlier.

  Willie laughed and shook his head. “Hell, the tapes’ already on the way to New York.”

• A recent Rodney Hayden newsletter says you can still pick up advance copies of his new album, 12 Ounce World, on his website or at a show, but they’ll be running out soon. After that, you’ll have to wait until the first week in November when it’s released by Smith Music Group.

Songwriters: Josh Gracin

The fourth single from Josh Gracin’s sophmore album, We Weren’t Crazy, falters in the same way that so many of today’s love songs do. It’s generic and devoid of imagination.

Despite initial marketing that touted the album as deep and personal, “Unbelievable (Ann Marie)” is anything but deep or personal. Sure, the name of Gracin’s wife is tacked onto the title, explicitly making her the subject of the love that Gracin croons about, but the lyric has been written in the same way a million times before. Take this line for instance: “Got your breath on my skin and the taste of your kiss.” How many times has the same sentiment been expressed in the same way throughout the past decade? The entire song is littered with the same kind of banal lines that could have been lifted from any generic love song. Where are the love songs with imagination like “Natural High?”

Truely, there’s nothing unique about the vocal, lyric, production, or melody. None of those properties are exceptionally poor, but as a whole, it’s exceptionally bland. It’s not simply enough to go through the motions and put together a technically competent song; without a distinguishable characteristic, it’s simply uninteresting.

And how, exactly, is something like “Unbelievable” supposed to advance Gracin’s career? He has no defining characteristics himself and this song doesn’t do anything to help remedy that, causing him to blend in with a crowd of middle-of-the-road artists. Granted, the previous single, “We Weren’t Crazy,” did make the top 10, but it did so quietly, and who could honestly describe it as a hit?

Listen: Josh Gracin - “Unbelievable (Ann Marie)”

It is difficult to know what more to say about Don Helms that hasn’t been said in the hours since his death. While the legacy of Hank Williams the singer and songwriter clearly was not dependent upon anything or anyone else, the legacy of the Hank Williams sound, as exemplified by such classic recordings as “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” was greatly enhanced by the lonesomeness of Don Helms’ steel guitar. The signature Williams sound, of which Helms was so much a part, greatly influenced an entire generation of country singers, from Webb Pierce to Faron Young to George Jones.

After the death of Hank Williams, Don continued to perform, sometimes as a session musician such as when he played on Brenda Lee’s recording of “Jambalaya.”

Once Jett Williams, the illegitimate daughter of Hank Williams, had legally established her entitlement to her father’s legacy, Helms was one of the first members of the Nashville country establishment to welcome her into the fold. In her 1990 autobiography, Ain’t Nothin’ Sweet as My Baby, Jett recounted the feeling of liking Helms and Jerry Rivers (Hank’s fiddle player) upon their first meeting and hoping someday to be friends with them both. Before long she thought of Helms as “Uncle Don.”

On his website yesterday, Whispering Bill Anderson described Don Helms as “…one of the funniest men and finest human beings it has ever been my privilege to know.”

Helms dated back to a time when an excellent four or five piece band and a good singer were all that were needed to make great country music. No drums, no light shows, no production tricks in the recording studio–just good music. The death of Don Helms–one of the last of Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys–at 81 years young, marks the end of an era. Bill Anderson put it best when he said “I consider myself so lucky to have known and traveled and existed in the presence of Don Helms. His music will live forever. I just wish he could have done the same.”

• Here is your 2008 Americana Music Festival schedule.
• Doctors discovered a spot on Merle Haggard’s lung on May 5th, but don’t know what it is. Haggard isn’t seeking further treatment for the spot right now, denying rumors of cancer. He says “whatever it was, it’s still there, still the same size.” He did however, discuss the recent death of his good friend Chester Smith, who he thinks didn’t receive proper care in his final days at a hospital. Smith owned several TV and radio stations along the west coast and was a country music singer himself.
  

  In 1955 at the age of 25, Smith’s musical career took off when he was approached by Modesto housewife Hazel Houser who had written a religious song called “Wait a little longer please Jesus”. They recorded the song together and it was released by Capitol records becoming a hit in the religious genre. As a result, Smith was named best new talent by the country music disc jockeys that year. However, Smith had to wait 46 years until 2002 until the version he recorded with lifelong friend Merle Haggard was in country music’s top 10 and to make his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry where he and Merle sang the song together. Through the years, more than 100 other artists recorded the song one of the most covered recordings ever.

• Rosanne Cash is scheduled to headline the second annual Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival in Starkville, Mississippi on Oct. 17-19.
• Photocrap posted lyrics to a hilarious parody of Rascal Flatt’s “Bob That Head.”
• On this day in 1951 Webb Pierce recorded “Wondering” in Nashville. (listen on Last.fm)
• Watch The Steeldrivers‘ performance on Conan O’Brien. (via BluegrassJournal.com)
• The new Hank III album, Long Hauls & Close Calls Damn Right Rebel Proud, is slated for an Oct. 21 release.
• Among the list of 80 things that make men cry is Johnny Cash’s video for “Hurt.” Tim from Merseyside, England says “it only seems to make men cry, the harder the man the more it gets to them.” (via ggcolumn)
• The Billy Graham film Billy: The Early Years is due out on Oct. 10 and country singer Josh Turner is excited about his role as Graham’s music director, George Beverly Shea.
  

  “It was my way of honoring the legacy of George Beverly Shea and Billy Graham and what they’ve done in their lives and their careers and the lives they’ve touched — obviously including mine,” says Turner, who spent his early singing in the Baptist church and attended several Graham crusades.

• Compare versions of “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven” from Kenny Chesney and George Strait on NashvilleGab.
• Moot Davis is back with the second installment of his video podcast series in which he talks about concerts that were special to him, buying a Manuel jacket and working with Pete Anderson.
• Big Rock Candy Mountain feels that most of Dottie West’s work was comprised of, and compromised by, bad Countrypolitan production, but nonetheless takes the time to celebrate the undeniable brights spots in her catalog. Like usual, there’s links to mp3s at the end.
• The new Jamey Johnson Unplugged at Studio 330 session is available.
• The Minner Station Post Office in Oildale, CA was officially renamed “Buck Owens Post Office” yesterday–the same day as the late singer’s birthday.
• Squinty Dan stumbled across a YouTube user by the name of Fretkillr, who he says plays a damn mean guitar. He describes himself as “a self-taught musician who has learned to play primarily by listening to recordings and through self-discovery.” Other than that, he’s revealed little about his identity, choosing rather to anonymously entertain than seek out fame. There’s currently over 100 videos, many of which are classic country, so scroll through, find something that suits your fancy and give it a listen. Good stuff.

Don’t look now, but Darius Rucker, lead singer of 90s rock group Hootie & The Blowfish, has a country hit on his hands. “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” currently sits at number 14 on Billboard’s country singles chart and continues to pick up spins. What you probably haven’t heard is that Rucker is the first black artist to chart a single in the country top 20 since Charley Pride last did it in 1988. That’s a noteworthy accomplishment, but Rucker’s management deserves great credit for downplaying the milestone. In fact, that much of the country audience remains oblivious to this historical tidbit goes a long way toward explaining Rucker’s success.

Critics sometimes become too accustomed to viewing mainstream country stars as pre-packaged commercial confectioneries ripe for consumption by the radio audience. This conception, questions of its accuracy aside, misses a more important point: it’s not the packaging that appeals to country radio listeners, it’s what’s inside the package, and these days that’s mostly a homogeneous crop of artists who conform to a narrow commercial ideal. Different, non-traditional artists may stand a chance to gain a foothold even in this environment, but it’s a mistake to believe that one can package a non-traditional artist into the radio playlist, especially when the packaging itself is constructed from an artist’s non-conformity. Great music, even when made by non-traditional artists, still works on country radio, but even great music becomes considerably less appealing when wrapped in a backstory that does little except argue that the music should not, in fact, be played on country radio.

Contrast Rucker with struggling newcomer Rissi Palmer. When Palmer’s “Country Girl” became the first country single from a black female artist to chart since 1987, the feat was greeted with a ballyhoo of press, including an article in The Houston Chronicle ambitiously titled “Black Woman Singer Rissi Palmer Breaks Color Lines” in which Palmer spoke extensively of obstacles associated with being a black aspiring country artist. Palmer’s race isn’t important only to her press: her historic charting single, “Country Girl,” is a direct reference to Palmer’s race in which she extols her country virtues while reminding listeners that “you don’t have to be a Georgia Peach from Savannah Beach” to be a country girl.

But image doesn’t mark the only point where the paths of Rucker and Palmer diverge. While Rucker’s single continues to rise, Palmer’s debut peaked at number 54 on Billboard, follow-up single “Hold On to Me” just cracked the Top 60 and debut album Rissi Palmer moved only a handful of units. Country music fans could hardly have been less impressed by 1720 Entertainment’s new and unique artist, and I blame much of Palmer’s failure on her race-based promotion.

The failure of these kinds of marketing campaigns isn’t limited to independent labels. RCA Nashville’s Crystal Shawanda has produced a remarkable debut album in Dawn of a New Day, but it’s impossible to read any Shawanda publicity that does not make significant mention of her Ojibwe heritage and the fact that the title of her debut album is the English translation of her Native American name. Shawanda’s “You Can Let Go” has fared better than Palmer’s debut single, but she’s still sitting on the wrong side of the top 20 without significant upward mobility.

It’s ironic that RCA should make such a mistake, for they wrote the book on launching a non-traditional artist when they signed eventual superstar (and black American) Charley Pride in 1965. Paul W. Dennis explained the circumstances well in a recent installment in the Forgotten Artists series:

The (race) situation in America was so tense in 1965 that RCA issued [Pride’s] first few singles without the customary picture sleeves and promotional information, hoping to get Country audiences hooked before they realized his race. To get the disk jockeys to play the records, they made them as hard-core country as was possible for the time, and listed the label’s four big name producers (Chet Atkins, Jack Clement, Bob Ferguson and Felton Jarvis) as the co-producers on the singles. DJs of the ’60s might not have known who Charley Pride was, but Atkins, Clement, Ferguson and Jarvis were the Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle and Mays of producers, so the records were destined to get played.

Eventually country audiences tumbled onto Charley’s “permanent suntan” (as he put it), but it was too late. They simply loved his singing and would demonstrate this love by purchasing millions of his albums over the next 30 years, pushing four albums to gold status, a rarity for country albums with no cross-over appeal.

History should’ve preempted the failed promotions of both Palmer and Shawanda, but let it not be said that the promotional giants can’t learn a lesson. When our own Jim Malec attempted to schedule an interview with Palmer, he was granted access only after he agreed not to ask about Palmer’s race, which Palmer’s representative Hot Schatz Public Relations described as having been “beaten to death.” Malec cancelled the interview after deciding that prohibition made it impossible to interview an artist who had worked so hard to craft a race-based image.

Lest the independent observer conclude that country radio audiences are simply racist, it’s important to note that the recent failure of new artists who are wrapped in a coat of a different color hasn’t been limited to non-white artists. The recent flurry of high profile pop-country crossovers has produced a significant number of new artists with promotional baggage independent of their current management: Jessica Simpson’s former life as a pop-princess is inseparable from her re-vamped country persona, Jewel can’t make a radio appearance without playing “You Were Meant For Me” or “Foolish Games” alongside cuts from country album Perfectly Clear, and Bon Jovi and The Eagles are such historic figures in rock music that, even sans marketing, it’s impossible for them to unassumingly drop a single on country radio.

By and large, these entanglements haven’t served the stars well, even if some of them possess stronger country credentials than several country radio mainstays. Simpson’s “Come On Over” looks headed for hit status, but Simpson has endured an embarrassing did-they-or-didn’t-they controversy concerning booing at her debut country performance and handlers have to fear downright audience hostility when Simpson plays the Grand Ole Opry on September 6th. Jewel scored only a modest hit with the excellent “Stronger Woman” while The Eagles and Bon Jovi look to be one-and-done on country radio.

This trend faces its most significant test to date with new Nashville Star Melissa Lawson, who has staked her career on hopes that the country music audience will be able to identify with an overweight mother of five. Lawson’s situation is unique in that the “every woman” demographic is well-represented within the country audience, while Palmer and Shawanda represent populations that are only a negligible portion of the fanbase, but her fate rests on the unproven assumption that audience empathy will translate into record sales.

The situation of Nashville Star runner-up Gabe Garcia is much less ambiguous. Past and present suggest that if he is to stand a chance, he’ll resist John Rich’s attempts to make him into a “Hispanic country star” and drop a strong honky-tonk single on country radio without racial pretense.

Nonetheless, the most important lesson for Garcia, Lawson, Palmer and all of the others is not about marketing but about artistry. Artists with non-traditional images have generally succeeded on county radio by making staunchly traditional country music, and Darius Rucker has not neglected this portion of his craft. Word is that during Rucker’s recent visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame, he was especially impressed by one artist, Kitty Wells, and left with an armful of her records. “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” may not qualify as traditional country, but it does represent near-flawless execution of contemporary country and excellent songcraft consistent with traditional country themes. Rucker sounds like a country singer, and he hasn’t made the mistake of using his marketing machine to attempt to convince fans that, as a black rock star, he really shouldn’t be one. A lot of aspiring country stars could learn something from that.

Darius Rucker has always loved country music. He cut his teeth on Buck Owens, and, later, fell in love with the music of Radney Foster. But his musical path took him in a different direction when, while studying at the University of South Carolina, he joined up with a group of guys who would together become one of the best-selling rock bands of the 90s.

As lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker sold over 21,000,000 albums (including 16,000,000 copies of the now ubiquitous Cracked Rear View). Those albums were steeped in the group’s collective rock influences, to be sure, but they were also laced with Rucker’s country sensibilities–he often remarks that he even tried to convince his bandmates to make Hootie & the Blowfish a country band.

So consider his debut for Capitol Nashville, Learn To Live, an album a long time in the making. It’s been nearly twenty years since Hootie & the Blowfish struck their first chord, and Rucker is finally returning to his roots.

Jim Malec: Your people tell me you’ve just finished eating brunch—did you, by any chance, have a Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch?

Darius Rucker: [Laughter] No, not today. But I’ve had my share, needless to say.

Continue Reading…

• The comedy show “Hee Haw” featuring performances from country music stars is being resuscitated. The RFD-TV cable channel will begin airing reruns of the Roy Clark and Buck Owens co-hosted show on September 7th.
• Peter Cooper has a nice article on Don Helms:
  

  In performance, he would treat audiences to instrumental versions of songs by Williams, Cline and others, and listeners left with the understanding that Mr. Helms’ playing was not merely an adornment to those recordings. Take the steel away, and the impact of the song would be irrevocably compromised.

• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members The Pretenders unveiled songs from their first studio album in six years on Monday at an event hosted by Yahoo. Frontwoman Chrissie Hynde says she’s avoided country music all of her life, but conceded that the band is moving in that direction with its new release, Break Up The Concrete, due out on Oct. 7.
• If Carrie Underwood had her way, we’d all be walking around with labels on our foreheads so she could see who has ulterior motives (What would your label say?). She tells Allure magazine that she never really knows why someone wants to be her around her, or if they genuinely like her. Plus she dishes on her text-message split from Chase Crawford and America’s quarterback, Tony Romo.
• Don Imus announced the September 16th release of The Imus Ranch Record, a 13-track album with proceeds benefiting the Imus Ranch, which hosts children afflicted with cancer or other serious blood diseases. The album features artists ranging from Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams and Dwight Yoakam to Patty Loveless, Vince Gill and Randy Travis. (via Still Is Still Moving)
• For the second year in a row Kenny Chesney joined the New Orleans Saints for a day of practice. Head coach Sean Payton told the players that they could have Sunday off if Chesney caught a punt within two chances. He needed three, but players still got the day off.
  

  “On the first one, I totally blew it,” said Chesney, who played receiver in high school in Tennessee. “On the second one, not only were they offside, but they interfered with me.”

  So Chesney was given a third chance, which he bobbled, but did not drop, sending players into celebration…

• A new three-disc Johnny Cash CD/DVD box-set due out on Oct. 14 will feature a total of 31 previously unreleased songs from his legendary 1968 concerts at Folsom Prison.
• From a press release: Shout! Factory and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will release two new Johnny Cash Christmas Special DVDs on Oct. 7 for the years 1978 and 1979, or you can pick up a box-set that includes Cash’s annual CBS Christmas specials from ‘76-’79.
• Trace Adkins, Rhett Akins, Leroy Van Dyke and Deryl Dodd reveal stories behind some of their worst gigs.
• Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts will announce the nominees for this year’s Country Music Association (CMA) Awards on Sept. 10.
• On the eve of celebrating the monumental achievement of 50 million albums sold and having been played by radio for most of his career, Alan Jackson says it’s hard to complain about the music industry’s treatment of traditional country acts, but some things do bother him:
  

  “From day one, no matter how many albums or tickets me or anybody else that does real country music has sold, or awards they’ve won, it seems like you’re always secondary, or Nashville is always apologizing for real country music and always trying to broaden their appeal by changing the style of music. That has always bugged me.”

• Bob Childers, dubbed the father of Red Dirt music, will be posthumously inducted into the Songwriters’ Category of the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame on Oct. 8.

On August 19th, RCA Nashville will release Dawn of a New Day, the debut album from Ontario native Crystal Shawanda. The album marks the emergence of a unique singer with a fascinating history and a fantastic passion for making music. Recently, The 9513 caught up with Crystal for an exclusive interview, which will be published on Monday, August 18.

To celebrate the American release of the album, RCA Nashville has made it possible for us to offer our readers the chance to win one of three prize packs, which each include an autographed copy of Dawn of a New Day and a Crystal Shawanda poster.

Entering and winning:

Shawanda’s last name, translated, means “dawn of a new day.” To enter this sweepstakes, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us what your name–first or last–means.

And in case you need a little help, here’s a link to a website that will allow you to search for your name’s meaning.

Eligibility:

To be eligible, you must leave your comment no later than Sunday, August 17th, 11:59 PM (Eastern). We’ll randomly select three winners from all eligible comments. You must also enter a valid e-Mail address so that we can contact you for shipping information. It’s as easy as that!

Good luck!

Visit: Crystal Shawanda on mySpace

• Steel guitarist Don Helms, who played on more than 100 Hank Williams recordings, passed away this morning at 81 from an apparent heart attack.
  

  Mr. Helms was the last remaining link to the Drifting Cowboys. His guitar was heard on more than 100 of Williams’ recordings, including “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Cold, Cold Heart” and “I Can’t Help (It If I’m Still In Love With You).” His steel playing is an indelible part of those records, and after Williams’ death Mr. Helms went on to provide significant parts on recordings such as Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ After Midnight,” Stonewall Jackson’s “Waterloo” and Lefty Frizzell’s “Long, Black Veil.” He played with other greats as well, including Loretta Lynn, Ernest Tubb, Ray Price, Jim Reeves and Webb Pierce.

• Country Weekly’s Chris Neal sang the praises of Jamey Johnson’s That Lonesome Song to the tune of five stars. He says, “it’s still too early in 2008 to declare an Album of the Year, but consider That Lonesome Song a contender for the honor.”
• Hazel Smith confirms reports that Julianne Hough and Chuck Wicks are an item.
• Willie Nelson Family Band members Paul English and Mickey Raphael contributed their drum and harmonica talents to the new Bruce Robison album, The New World, due out on September 2nd.
• Country Universe’s newest writer, Blake Boldt, counts down 25 of his favorite songs from Patty Loveless.
• Darrell Scott has written songs for Travis Tritt, Dixie Chicks and Sara Evans, but he put the pen down to honor some of his songwriting heroes on his next album of acoustic covers titled Modern Hymns, due out on August 19. Even though it hasn’t been released, Scott has already begun work on his next album, which he describes as “a pretty full-tilt country record, pre-’Urban Cowboy’ country.”
• Country, California’s John Maglite pulled several quotes from stories that pertain to country performers in some fashion and provided a short commentary on each. For instance, the following quote is from Jessica Simpson in an article in the San Jose Mercury News:
  

  Country was a huge part of what I listened to… All of my boyfriends growing up, all of our songs were from Garth Brooks, or Clint Black, or Clay Walker…

  And Maglite’s response: “Wow, Jessica Simpson had a lot of boyfriends growing up.” Funny stuff.

• Galleywinter’s Brad Beheler republished an article that he wrote for the Aug/Sept issue of LoneStarMusic magazine chronicling the rise of Wade Bowen in the Texas music scene by doing things the only way he knows how–his way.
• John Brown, the man convicted of killing Hee Haw star Dave “Stringbean” Akeman and his wife 34 years ago, was denied parole for a third time. He’ll be up for consideration again in 2011.
• Eamon McLoughlin stumbled across an album titled Farewell to the Tracks from Jim Rooney while waiting for the bar at The Station Inn, and while it may sound unimportant, he says it’s a tribute to a recording studio called Jack’s Tracks (named for Jack Clement), which may have sold more records than any other studio in Nashville.
• Emily West added two more new tracks to her MySpace: “Why Do Lovers Leave” and “One Thing Right.”

Mention Bakersfield to a country music fan and the names Buck Owens and Merle Haggard immediately come to mind. That’s to be expected considering Buck and the Hag were the two most successful practitioners of the “Bakersfield Sound,” but there are several other artists just as important to the evolution of the sound. Chief among these is Wynn Stewart, a hard-core honky-tonk singer who arrived at a time when Nashville was distancing itself from the hard-core sounds.

Country music rapidly lost its audience after the arrival of Elvis Presley in 1956. In order to retain viability in the marketplace, Nashville producers attempted to broaden the appeal of the music by adding strings and background voices. As time went by, the background voices became choruses, the strings became entire string sections and (worst of all) fiddle and steel guitar became noticeably absent in the recordings of the likes of Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold. Plus, the vocals themselves often became bland.

Wynn Stewart arrived in 1954 with his hard-core sound and distinctive tenor and phrasing, recording for a minor label out in California. He signed to major label Capitol in 1956 and had one hit, “Waltz of the Angels,” which reached #14, but he was unable to duplicate that success and was soon released.

He then signed to Jackpot / Challenge Records in 1958 where, after dabbling with a few rock and roll songs on the Jackpot label, he recorded a number of classic country songs, including “Wishful Thinking,” which hit #5 (Ralph Mooney on steel and Gordon Terry on fiddle), and several duets with Jan Howard, including “Wrong Company” and “Big, Big Love.” These records featured fiddle and steel guitar in a way that Nashville recordings of that era wouldn’t touch. My personal favorite of Stewart’s songs, “Playboy,” was recorded during this period. As was often the case for Stewart, some of his strongest material did not chart–this song being one of those cases.

While Stewart was signed to Challenge, one of his songs, “Above and Beyond,” was recorded by Buck Owens who took it to #3 in early 1960 (Buck’s second big hit). Years later Rodney Crowell finally got the song to #1. Before Buck formed the Buckaroos, you could clearly hear the Wynn Stewart influence in his vocals and sound.

In late 1963, Stewart’s bass player, a young ex-con named Merle Haggard, asked for his permission to record “Sing A Sad Song.” Always willing to help a fellow artist, Wynn gave the song to Merle who had his first chart record with the song (it reached #19).

Stewart re-signed with Capitol Records in 1964 but had little success until 1967 when his fifth single for the label, “It’s Such A Pretty World Today,” topped the charts. The recording found the classic Wynn Stewart sound softened with vocal choruses and string accompaniment. Three more top tens (“’Cause I Have You,” “Love’s Gonna Happen To Me” and “Something Pretty”) followed, but the hits became smaller and smaller and after 1971 Stewart was dropped by Capitol. A stint with RCA produced no hits, although he did score one more top ten with “After The Storm” in 1976 on the Playboy label where he returned to his hard-core sound. Stewart’s last top 20 hit came in 1977 with “Sing A Sad Song,” which, ironically, was the song that launched Merle Haggard’s career; it too, got to #19.

Stewart formed his own label, Pretty World Records, named for his biggest hit, and seemed to be ready to get his career back into high gear when he was felled by a heart attack on July 17, 1985.

Both Buck Owens and Merle Haggard have cited Wynn Stewart as a major influence on their careers, yet somehow, he was never able to translate his enormous talent into extended and consistent success for himself. Possible reasons are several:

1. Poor timing. He was a hard country artist at a time when Nashville was going soft and attempting to co-opt the easy listening market.
2. A lack of self-discipline and some bouts with the bottle.
3. Lack of visual appeal. Like Haggard, Wynn Stewart was short in stature, probably shorter than Haggard. Unlike Haggard, who was very handsome and photogenic in his younger days, Wynn Stewart was just another guy, a bit below average in appearance (his daughters are all quite pretty, however.)

Wynn Stewart inspired tremendous loyalty among his fellow musicians and artists. For years after his death, legendary steel guitar player Ralph Mooney would identify himself as “Wynn Stewart’s steel player.” Roy Nichols, Haggard’s long-time guitar player, played for Wynn Stewart, and before that, for Lefty Frizzell. Roy regarded Stewart as a giant of the music.

Unfortunately not much of Stewart’s material has made it onto CD. Several of his Capitol hits are on multi-artist anthologies, but otherwise none of his Capitol material is available except for a ten CD box set of all 279 of his Capitol Recordings, available, of course, from German label Bear Family and selling for $150+.

There is a Best of Wynn Stewart 1958-1962 CD available covering his years with Challenge Records. While this set misses his big hits on Capitol, it does include what I feel to be his best recordings: hard-core honky-tonk classics.

Stewart’s daughter, Wren Stewart Tidwell, runs a very informative website and has some of Stewart’s vinyl LPs for sale. While I have hopes that someday Capitol / EMI comes to its senses and releases some of the songs on CD, I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to happen. The LPs are all worth owning and I’ve been buying them whenever I can find them. The official Wynn Stewart website is at www.wynnstewart.com.

He recorded at least 58 of the 45 rpm singles–of which 31 charted. Used record stores may carry some of these records. Happy hunting!

There is also a tribute album available, recorded by Billy Keeble. This CD features 15 of Billy’s favorite Wynn Stewart songs, including a duet with Wren Stewart Tidwell on one of the selections. Billy isn’t Wynn Stewart, but his CD shows the breadth of the Wynn Stewart repertoire. This disc is available from CD Baby or from www.billykeeble.com.

Listen: Wynn Stewart on MySpace